White text on a black background is unusually ragged, making it hard to read at small font sizes.

Bottom Line

The Ricoh PJ X5460 delivers watchable full-motion video and is bright enough for a large room, though it doesn't handle white text on black as well as most projectors.

If you're in the market for a projector that's bright enough for a midsize to large room, the Ricoh PJ X5460 ($860) is worth considering. It doesn't handle detail like small-size white text on a black background as well as much of the competition, but the X5460 is light enough to carry easily if you need to, and it's one of the few DLP data projectors that delivers watchable video.

The X5460 shares much of its design with the WXGA (1,280-by-800) Ricoh PJ WX5460. Along with the lower resolution, the X5460 offers a slightly lower brightness rating, at 4,000 lumens, but the two are essentially identical, with the same dimensions and weight, at 4 by 12.4 by 8.8 inches (HWD) and 6 pounds 10 ounces, the same set of ports, and even the same 1.1x zoom lens. For details on those features, as well as setup, take a look at our review of the Ricoh PJ WX5460.

Brightness The X5460 offers a slightly higher brightness rating than the Epson PowerLite 965H XGA 3LCD Projector, which is our Editors' Choice XGA projector for a small to midsize conference room or classroom. However, comparing the brightness between these two projectors is less straightforward than you might expect. The Epson model uses a three-chip LCD engine, which means it has the same color and white brightness. In contrast, the X5460, like most DLP data projectors, has a lower color than white brightness.

Because of the difference in brightness levels, full-color images with the X5460 won't be as bright as you would expect from the white brightness. That, in turn, means that its higher brightness rating compared with the Epson 965H doesn't necessarily mean that it's brighter for all images. (For more on the topic, see Color Brightness: What It Is, Why It Matters.)

Keeping that qualification in mind, and strictly as a point of reference, according to the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) recommendations, 4,000 lumens is bright enough at the X5460's native 4:3 aspect ratio for a 233- to 316-inch image (measured diagonally) in theater-dark lighting and assuming a 1.0-gain screen. With moderate ambient light, the appropriate maximum screen size drops to 152 inches. For smaller image sizes, you can lower the brightness level by using the projector's Eco lamp mode, one of its lower-brightness predefined modes, or both.

Rainbow Artifacts and 3D One of the disadvantages for single-chip DLP projectors in general, compared with three-chip LCD models, is that they can show rainbow artifacts (red-green-blue flashes). This is not much of an issue for the X5460, however, particularly for data images.

With one image in our tests that's designed to make these artifacts show, I saw hints of them, but only when I made a point of shifting my gaze back and forth quickly. With full-motion video, I saw them often enough in a black-and-white clip in our tests that they could be annoying to people who see them easily and are bothered by them. With our color clips, however, they showed so rarely that it's unlikely anyone will consider them a problem.

A key advantage for DLP models like the X5460 is that 3D support is all but standard with DLP designs, but rare for LCD data projectors. This doesn't matter in most cases, since most data projector applications don't need 3D. But if you happen to need it, the X5460 offers it, with support for all HDMI 1.4a 3D formats, using DLP-Link glasses.

Image and Audio Quality Image quality for the X5460 is good enough for most purposes. On our standard suite of DisplayMate tests, some colors were a little dark with every preset mode, which is expected for a projector with a lower color than white brightness. On the plus side, color balance was excellent, with suitably neutral grays from white to black in every mode.

A more important issue for data images is that the X5460 doesn't do a uniformly good job with detail. Black text on white was crisp and highly readable on my tests, even at sizes as small as 6.8 points. However, white text on black was readable at 16.5 points. At 12 points, the text was readable, but ragged. At smaller sizes, I found it hard to read. Fortunately, this should be good enough for most purposes. If you need to show fine detail, you should be looking at models with a higher resolution than XGA.

On our full-motion video tests, the X5460 did far better than most data projectors. The contrast ratio is a little low, which gives colors a faded look, but the video qualifies as watchable. The frequent rainbow artifacts I saw with our black-and-white clip make the projector a poor choice for showing black-and-white movies if there's a chance that there's anyone in the audience who sees these artifacts easily. However, that shouldn't be an issue for shorter black-and-white clips or even full-length movies in color.

The 10-watt mono speaker puts out only enough volume to fill a small conference room. If you need sound for, say, a presentation, you'll probably want to connect external speakers.

ConclusionFor applications that need to show full-motion video, consider the Epson 965H. As with the Ricoh PJ X5460, it offers better-than-typical video for a data projector, but with a 1.6x zoom lens the guarantee that it won't show rainbow artifacts. Also consider the BenQ MX631ST, which is a little easier to set up than the X5460, thanks its much shorter throw. For applications that don't need require black-and-white video, however, and particularly those that use images that will benefit from a high white brightness, the X5460 is worth considering.

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About the Author

M. David Stone is an award-winning freelance writer and computer industry consultant. Although a confirmed generalist, with writing credits on subjects as varied as ape language experiments, politics, quantum physics, and an overview of a top company in the gaming industry. David is also an expert in imaging technologies (including printers, moni... See Full Bio

Ricoh PJ X5460

Ricoh PJ X5460

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